Emmapause to Extirpation
by Quillon42
Summary: Another year, and another cramped, confined encounter for Emma Frost. This time, in a most penitent sort of place, she faces the music of future past with her brother Christian while she continues to improve the plain past...and then ultimately mutate all the more.
1. Chapter 1

EMMAPAUSE TO EXTIRPATION

(OR: PLAYLISTS OF SUTURED CRASS)

By Quillon42

(NB: Yes, I know that many sources say it's a marimba and not a xylophone in the song

featured in this first chapter…this is an X-Story, though, so I used license, okay?

(Many more NB's probably to follow…)

SOMETIME IN 1992 IN A COUPLE OF PLACES IN MASSACHUSETTS

For all of the years that she wore those swanky velvet covers over her eyes before she retired to bed, Emma had never quite been pelted with the opaqueness that she was sensing now.

It had only been seconds since she slipped between the sheets, the lady bearing her naturally brunette locks down onto the pillow, settling in nude in her original, more ordinary double-B'ed bodily iteration. Oh, there were times for the regular blonde idolatry which she could irradiate enslavingly upon any multitude of men…but in moments of respite such as these, she of course didn't need to try like that.

As the lady forced the chichi coal-hued cheaters over her face once more, just a moment ago, Dame Emma Frost allowed fragments of an underground incident to enter her mind once again. It was a bit patchier now, as shock blocked out the trauma to some extent, but she could recall the figments of family and touches of torture that tormented her so in those sewers a year past.

Now, just instants later, here the Once-White Queen was again, she finding herself spinning off, to the corner of swooning and sicking up, she now far from her bed and swaddled in that same smothering sort of sensation, the arresting itch of tension in a tetchy spot once more, she feeling cramped and confined and desperate in the dark…

…but this time, as she would find a minute or two more, she wasn't to be alone in her suffering.

"…

"…

"…Em?"

The roil-inducing regent's head shot in the direction of the sound. This after so many beats of shifting and shuffling in utter uncertainty and terror.

"…Christian?"

"Emma…I thought it was you."

"…

"…Christian…"

The malevolent maiden felt a mite more comforted at realizing that, in the midst of this ebony empty, she was in the company of one of the men she admired most: her older brother whom she knew in adolescence…and again only most recently.

Christian Frost was a noble one, the only Frost sibling with locks of natural blond—which Emma and Adrienne admittedly did their all to ape, with inferior results. What made him much more the model in Emma's eyes, though, was not so much his dashing visage but his daring valor in rebelling, most vocally in Em's secondary school years—and especially against the rusting regime of their vicious father, Winston. While Win-Win had waved the phallic wand of power over everyone else in the upper-classed clan, Christian was always the one to resist, if coolly, the beta dog beating back the advances of the aggressive alpha in his own aloof way.

Probably the most overt manner in which Christian clashed with his father's fiefdom was in his election of a lifestyle, an orientation which was perceived by many to be…different. Deviant. Unnatural. Emma had heard her father freaking out at times, calling Christian a freak in turn, through this experience the young lady witnessing one of the first instances of prejudice from one human being to another…the first of so many in what would become her forever-twenty-seven time upon this planet.

Emma became estranged from Christian in the course of a couple of instants back then, the latter signed away to suffocate in a sanitarium and the former flinging herself out to the overexposure of the open streets of Boston. Even at that juncture, though…she never forgot her brother, and his superseding if subconscious influence over who she would become.

Indeed, all the gnawing and gnashing against the norm that Fraulein Frost effected…its inspiration, its origin was arguably in Christian's own capers.

At the moment, as it appeared, the pair would need that sense of insurrectional ingenuity in order to survive the predicament into which they were presently plunked.

Of a sudden the limbs of each sibling were shocked stock straight, neither able to allow a single muscle to utter. The sense of shifting backward then ensued, then the feeling of each's top half shunting downward.

Upon the face of Emma now was a cloth so much crueler than the nocturnal eyewraps; the same experience enveloped the countenance of Christian as well.

With the liquid that began to lay upon the sheathed, shrieking muffled faces of the Frosts, a most devilish little ditty began to dance upon their ears.

_[DONK, DONK, DENK, DENK, DINK-DINK-DEENK-DEENK-DINK…]_

_[DINK, DINK, DENK, DENK, DONK, DONK, DUNK…] _

_[DONK, DONK, DENK, DENK, DINK-DINK-DEENK-DEENK-DINK…]_

_[DONK, DONK…DENK, DONK, DONK…BLLLLLENNK]_

Though the drops delved deep into her nasal annals, Emma couldn't help but allow the thought to escape her brain.

_Beef's on the baby's bells once again._

Really; as it continued to tink on out while what had better have been water was plashing against the fabricked faces of the lady and her brother, the melodic presence of the juvenile xylophone posed a greater threat to the Queen's senses than any other entity that could possibly begin with an X—be it from the days of present, past, future, future past, past future, or whatever the fuck.

And then…

_[PLENK, PLINK-PLINK PLENK, PLUNK, PLENK, PLINK-PLINK PLENK, PLUNK…]_

There came the accompaniment of even stranger strings, their plucking pricking against the ears of Emma and her brother just as jauntily…just as hauntingly.

But it was what followed…that chilled the chingadera that was Emma Frost the most:

_[PLENK, PLINK-PLINK PLENK, PLUNK…]_

_Now and then I think of when we bummed in Beantown…_

_[PLENK, PLINK-PLINK PLENK, PLUNK…]_

_Like when you said you were so glad to be a Frost on the fly…_

_[PLENK, PLINK-PLINK PLENK, PLUNK…]_

_You told yourself that I was right for thee,_

_But deep inside you missed the fam's company,_

_And then my loans and Lucien's gun is all I can remember…_

_[PLENK, PLINK-PLINK PLENK, PLUNK…]_

[SPLOOOOOSSSHHH]

The tickling, trifling trickles then gave way to a gush as a gallon's worth of water then crashed down on both the brains of sister and brother. This caused each to tumble out of his or her tortured, suspended state and onto the cold, lonely floor beneath.

As each regained the right to move his or her arms, then wrest away the wet rag over the face, there followed the finding of a chestnut-mulleted man directly ahead, whom Emma had encountered in far too many interludes under those nighttime eyecovers…

Verily the only "TK" more terrifying to her than the TeleKinesis wielded by that overpromoted, overpriced primrose prostitute at Xavier's School…

Troy Kilkelly: The young man whom Miss Frost hobnobbed, just after her escape from Frost Manor. The one with whom she fell into the crisis of captivity under the loan lord known as Lucien.

The one for whom she first really cried out, in a moment of honestly emotional pique…

…as that monster's bullet tore Troy away from her forever.

And now here he was, a nonCassidy banshee blaring at her, a nonRourke siren roaring at her…

…under the auspices of overplayed popular standards from decades ahead, of course, as other weird instruments all chimed in.

_But you didn't have to geTTTTT, ME KILLED, (DANG, DANG DANG)_

_Make it out like I was DEAD MEAT AND LIKE I WAS NOTHING,_

_And I didn't even nEEEEED, YOUR LUST, (DANG, DANG DANG)_

_But you PUT ME IN SUCH DANGER AND IT ALL WENT BUST._

"Em…" croaked Christian from nearby. The two were thrown to the floor from the Belgian-Australian-sounding bawling that deafened from directly above their heads. Coweringly, Emma huddled close, she still choking a bit on the water boarded into her breast, and she knowing that Chris was also reeling from the same.

She reached his side, shakily, as her brother managed, ever so weakly:

"…

"…

"…Why does it sound like the illegitimate output of Sting and Pee-Wee Herman?"

Though Herr Frost muttered this out ever so faintly, said Sting-Wee must have heard it nonetheless, as the apparent Troytergeist screwed up his face and sang ever more shrilly:

_No you didn't have to stOOOOOOP, SO LOWWW, (DANG, DANG DANG)_

_Have yourself collect the MONEY AND THEN CHANGE YOUR HAIR COLOR,_

_I guess I don't nEEEEED, THAT THOUGH, (DANG, DANG DANG)_

_NOW YOU'RE JUST SOMEBODY THAT'S A DOU-CHEY-HO…_

Until this very instant, Emma was on the proverbial ropes—both physically from the Titletown water torture, and psychologically from the seeming semblance that was the killed 'Kelly…

…but deep down, psychically she was still intact. And not unlike a McFly miffed by being called "Chicken"…

No one dubbed her a douchey ho. Not even the ghost of a guy for whom she might have once gone Gaga Frost.

Reaching her petite feet, Emma faced this fright from far back and, for and instant thought to sing and thus play the Kimbra to his Pee-Sting…then thought better of it, as it would be playing on his terms; no one made her sing, or dance like that, literally or otherwise; and this author just didn't feel like summoning the lyrics for it (there's more (s)hits to come in the following chapters anyway, rest assured…)

"You're certainly not the Troy that _I_ used to know," spat Emma, the lady whipping her hair around and changing it from brown to blonde as it coursed across the air. Then under her breath: "Or should I say, _whom_ I used to know (I teach English Grammar on the side at Massachusetts Academy, of course)…"

"But yeah…and his death was never on me. He brought it upon himself to go up against Lucien."

The Troy-terror didn't even flinch at the beauteous blonde now before him, her dimensions now augmented once again from B- to E-Grade all over. He sniffed. "Yet you, for all the forms you can pretend in…you're the same, shallow shell of a she-shit."

He then snickered a bit. "Hmph. Try saying that five times fast."

"I'd prefer to do something else fifty times fast."

And then Troy became not triumphant but rather trounced as he found himself harried by a flurry of fiercely-hard fists that pummeled into his face and chest. Emma didn't let up as her form flowed from dame to diamond, the latter self hogging the predominance of the punching.

"Fifty shades of fisticuffs, fucker!" she screamed as she threw and threw. The form before her fell backward as she haymade most heavily with her rock-hard hands.

"You're not the same," she hissed as she kept laying into the form before her. "You're not even Troy. I can tell.

"He always had better taste in music. He wouldn't ever have settled for any hipster dipshit dross like this. I know who you really are…

"_Jason."_

No, it wasn't the gorilla goalie-faced Jason…

…though it was certainly one who wore masks. Ever so many of them.

Under the force of her fists, the man shuddered…then grinned and chortled. Like the slipperiest of slime he undulated out from the woman, then rose up in a miasma before her.

Emma backed off unbelievingly as she beheld the mutant before her who was now as secondarily-altered as she.

"You could never hurt me, Emma," he said, smiling with his oaken locks and his awful mutton chops, "not back in the days of Hellfire, and certainly not now. The truth is, you—and your brother alike—you know you both enjoyed this so, so much…seeing as you both like confinement as you do.

"Christian, of course, in the closet in the days before the asylum…and then a nuthouse shut-in." At this the face of Emma's brother ground into the most disgruntled of grits.

"Emma, from being stifled in Frost Manor…to becoming the stiff mistress at Mass Academy…always so sequestered.

"As such, this solitary confinement each of you experienced, in this actual prison all around you…it was most fitting, and most festive for Em and Chris alike.

"In fact, if you'd like more bondage and 'boarding, I'd be more than happy to oblige…"

"Get OUT of here," cried Emma as another diamond right hook from her struck across the face of Jason…and the entire image shattered before her.

While the pieces fell to the floor: "Oh, I'm off…at least for the moment. And for the record, it's true…Troy was never your fault. He undid himself with Lucien's pistol, and you had no hand in his passing.

"But, before you're out of here, you're going to have to face someone from that same time, whom you forced into fetters, whom you could have spared…and you're going to rectify things, or become a wreck yourself.

"You see, my little creampuff of crapola…with your brother back, and the latent mutant manifestations you've underwent, your life's been in a very fluxy fast forward of late. But, in the encounters to come…

"You're going to experience a very acute EMMAPAUSE."

As the voice followed suit with the now-vanished image, a sliver of light emerged from a few meters away—thus marking the manner through which Emma and her brother could escape this solitary confinement, and reach the rest of the prison of which Jason had mentioned. As she straggled along with her sibling, Miss Frost wondered who it could be, whom she had once put in shackles like that. From all her adventuring and antagonizing, she couldn't remember for the lewd, polluted life of her.

TO BE CONTINUED


	2. Chapter 2

EMMAPAUSE TO EXTIRPATION

By Quillon42

CHAPTER TWO

Now the siblings were systematically skulking through the most foreboding corridors of the prison proper: those of the execution chambers. In this reality at least, Massachusetts was more than amicable to the idea of the death penalty, and many in the penitentiary paid with their lives for atrocious transgressions visited upon the inhabitants of the Bay State.

This place on the whole was uberhumanly unsettling to one Christian Frost in particular, as he recalled the occasion on which he and his beau and confidant Dante were entertaining Chris's sister Em that one night, a simple popcorn-and-porn evening (Christian lied and said the tape was _The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie_—it was all really to prank her a bit, but all in good fun)—then out of nowhere all the guns and batons and flashlights and visors, and before anyone welcome in the townhouse could register it, Christian and his lover were laid up in a cell for the evening.

The cause for the warrant underlying the arrest? Possession—and not for that of porn or popcorn, mind you.

But Christian had such conviction that Dante was not of the sort to delve in dealing, in highs or in firearms—his boy seemed to be such a straight arrow (in the law-abiding sense, that is)…

And the fact was that Christian, after all, was somewhat right about his inclinations. His Cuban cuddle wasn't into that sort of life. Not anymore, anyway.

All it took, though, was one small crooked police plant to set in motion Dante's departure by way of deportation back to Cuba—the lesser evil for the immigrant, at that, given that the only other alternative for him was incarceration in a fullscale prison…

…like the one that Christian and Emma were inching through now.

It was all so ghastly, as they crossed the intersection that led down to the lethal injection beds, then to one room infamously imbued with the moniker "The Gallows." This Massachusetts had not been so cruel as to crank a person up by his or her neck, at least not for a century or two—but what happened on this Earth was that a certain inmate became so mentally destitute that the only way out for him was through stringing himself up—and with only dental floss at his disposal to do so. Yes, just as some other convicts used same in our reality to make for more conventional ways out (NB: One can Google this for several examples of escape via dental floss), this poor prisoner used the hygienic threads to seek and find his own sort of wretched release.

And of course, this too resonated with Christian, as Dante's aforementioned departure summoned a similar stunt from the young Mister Frost—a frightening brush with the beyond which was averted only by Emma, when the younger sister saw her brother swinging by his neck, in a room right at home, out of despair for the bowing out of his beloved from his life.

Emma herself was strolling along at quite a clip through The Gallows, hand in hand with brother, when suddenly she found herself jerked back by the sudden stasis of her sib.

"Chrissy…?

"What is it, darling?"

But the gallant guy could say nothing, his face displaying only the static of shock as he stared up at a rafter that must have been an accessory to what went down must dreadfully here.

His sister shook her head, then tugged at her hand clasping Chris's. "Come on, love…come on, I'm even brunette again—just as you like it. See?"

Not even the flourishing of Emma's naturally fallow follicles could get Christian to start. He just continued to stand there, an adonis who might as well have been encased in ivory.

Then before Emma could do anything, her brother broke from her, bawling as he began sprintingly back towards the corridor to the bed with the most lethal sort of lullaby possible.

"CHRISTIAN!

"Please don't leave me behind…again…"

She looked down the long length of the dusty, lifeless corridor. Emma wasn't going to lose this important man in her life, perhaps the only significant male in her existence who was not to fuck and manipulate, as was the case with Sebastian in reality and with Scott in her fantasies (again, this was 1992); no, not to manipulate but to emulate…

…but was Emma late, now, too late and unable to reach her brother?

"Awww…"

She spun around to behold the other baby brat of the Frost family—a brat other than her older sister Adrienne, as far as the pallid princess here was concerned. Indeed, it was the last of the siblings for her to encounter now, the one who was more nihilist Goth than nervy go-getter, she with her shocks of black to supplant the Nordic effects of everyone else in the clan…

Emma turned to face her confidently and full-on, with stag-staggering poise.

"So what's the ordealie-ya…

"Cordelia."

The once-White-Queen was never very close with either of her sisters, but especially not with this one so tackily named after the rebel daughter in _King Lear._ Unlike the seditious spawn in Shakespeare, though, this Cordelia had next to no redeeming qualities, at least if one asked Emma—even despite the fact that Cord allegedly had psionic abilities of her own. To Emma, such gifts were squandered on a no-account nuisance like her little sister.

Said little sister now shifted in her oversized Doc Martens, shoved her hands in the pockets of her ginormous overalls. Looked Emma directly in the eye.

"You may or may not know, given the distance between us…I got the power of Empathy, Emmy."

This struck the much more famous Frost as strange, really; Cordelia, who always came off to her as if she were the Duchess of Disaffectedness to her White Queen…with the talent for _Empathy?_

"I would have taken you for wielding the mutant power of Apathy, Cord—turning the masses into muddled mobs of repugnance and alienation. Apathy mixed with a fair helping of bitterness, I might say, as well."

"Oh no, fellow Frosty…I'm all about the Empathy; all about the Emmapathy, in fact.

"Honest…I could feel the faith in nice things fly from you, the second you saw your bosom brother Christian run right away just now! Mm_yeauhhh."_

If there were one thing the two sisters here had in common, it was the penchant and talent for disgustingly-dripping sarcasm.

Cordelia traced an index finger idly around the design of the navel tattoo she acquired to annoy Daddy Winbucks; she played at the piercing protruding from its center. "I've got just the thing for you, though, Emmy…something to pick you up from down in the dumpy-dumps."

Before Emma could recoil into a more defensive stance, Cord clutched at her own temples, the resulting psionic volley striking deep into her older sister's psyche in a way that it never could in any other situation (as, after all, the Frosts were supposed to be as immune to one another's abilities as the Summerseses were and otherwise). Here, surprisingly, Dame Frost found herself diving involuntarily to the ground, grabbing at her own forehead…then strangely at her mouth as her jaw started going involuntarily slack.

"You're gonna be using that mouth _reeeal_ creatively in another minute, Emmy…

"You see, my own means of torturing you won't involve the sensation of drowning, as was the case in solitary just now…nor will you be on the receiving end of electric shocks, as was the situation in the sewer a year back…no. All you'll have to do here is sing, sing to my heart's content. As far as I'm concerned, of the greatest accomplishments I could possibly effect with one of my other abilities—that of Mind Control—is to not only make you squirm, and make you scream, but also to make you…

"…how should I say it? _Serenade_ me, make me feel _special,_ the way that Christian has always made you feel special. And you're going to do this by debasing yourself, by lowering yourself to the basest echelon possible."

Emma's dainty hands were still affixed atop her chin. She wanted to ask in desperation a second what Cordelia had in mind, but her vocal chords were not for her to control right now, and the latter was already getting there anyway.

"Yes, Emma…all you have to do for me here is sing, sing something that will in the coming decades become a very, very popular anthem. I think it's gonna suit you right well. The artist's name connotes something that would be much closer to my own aura than yours, colorwise…but deep inside, it's all you. The…'artist' I speak of…"

"It's Rebecca Black."

About a half-mile down the penitentiary, Christian lay as relaxedly as he could on one of the injection beds, he communing with a manifestation of the cohort of his heart, his Cuban companion Dante, as he and the image he beheld simulated injections with needles of the most intimate kind.

See, despite the fact that Chris was along for the waterboarding excursion, the entire backdrop here was, as with the sewers of the year previous, an occasion for Emma to be tortured more than anyone. No, here Christian was with Dante to be delighted. Not to be distressed…certainly not to be…

…distracted…

As the bold blond reached for his Latin lover once more, he swore he could hear something nefarious, something…nasal.

It was almost as if it were Emma…crooning something, right through her nostrils, about…_cereal,_ was it? But no, couldn't be; she wasn't a morning person, much less one for breakfast.

Then after a few more sounds, regarding equally trite subjects for song, Christian went from contented to concerned. He allowed himself to lift up out of the bed, even at Dante's protest, then to start a brisk walk for the door to the hall again, Brother Frost raising a hand for his lover to wait, keeping his hand up even after he looked back to note the likeness of his paramour begin to molder and dissipate before his eyes.

_No time to focus on that now,_ he thought as he stepped all the more quickly. _Emma must be in some sort of trouble…_

As he came closer to the clearing of dental execution, the rendition ramped up in volume:

"_Ah see mah FRAINNNSSS…"_

Christian started toward the Gallows now in a more ready gallop. He was almost there, and it sounded like not a moment too soon.

It was just as he was about a hundred meters away that he heard his beloved sister's voice chirp out, in a most artificial-sounding intonation:

"_Convict dropping this soap, lifer dropping that soap…"_

He broke into a full sprint at this.

"_Gotta make my mind up, WHICH SOAP CAN I TAAAHAAAAAA__**KKKKKE?!"**_

After this superhumanly-strained final syllable, the anal tang of Autotune remained hanging in the musty air for what must have been two seconds but what felt like ten millennia.

Chris noted such as he rounded the last corner, the man fearing the absolute worst for Emma. He bolted through, half-expecting to find his sister in a most mortifyingly compromised position between two or twenty more inmates…

But all he found when he reached his salacious sibling was the woman herself…

…with a small bucket of what must have been shoe polish, and the same drenching to an absolute jet hue the brunette-to-blonde-and-back locks of Lady Frost (though her eyes retained their icy blueness). The utter black that enveloped Emma's scalp, anyway, made Christian think of his youngest sister Cordelia, as did the faintest sound of what seemed to be guttural laughter some distance away. But all who was in front of him was Emma.

Yes, it was Emma…with an aseptically-gleeful look on her face and her jaw working up and down most mechanistically as she belted out:

"_It's, EMM-DAY, EMM-DAY, GOTTA GO DOWN ON EMM-DAY…"_

The next line or so of this apparent "hook" was lost on Chris as he stood transfixed at the spectacle of his sister. She just stood there, in the tritest of trances, trilling out this culture-crushing cacophony as her beauteous mouth continued in a most rectangular fashion to chomp out the most brain-blastingly banal of lyrics.

"_EMM-DAY, EMM-DAY, GO-ING DOWN ON EMM-DAY…"_

Brother Frost shook his head, knowing now that this must have been the doing of someone on the level of Cordelia…but she herself couldn't be here with them, could she?

No matter. As long as Emma kept on "going down on" whatever the hell she was singing about, she was in danger. And Chris had to be there for her.

He dashed to his sister, shook her. Nothing.

No way was he going to strike her.

"_FUN, FUN, FUN, FUN…"_

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," cussed Christian as he drove a fist into his palm, he hunched down now at his sister's feet, racking his brain as to what to do.

He then noticed the shoe polish bucket next to Em, and remembered the washroom he passed on the way over…and prayed that that "Jason" didn't use up all the utilities an hour ago…

As Chris grabbed the bucket and raced for the bathroom, he could hear Emma's inflection ghostily, gratingly…it sounded as if she were worsening by the instant.

…Was she infusing some kind of whitebread ebonics in it now?

"_Yes-ter-day was X-Day, X-Day…_

"_Tidd-ay it is Emm-Day, Emm-Day…_

"_We, we, we so invited…_

"_We so incited…_

"_We gonna palm some balls tod-ay…"_

Brother raced back now, the bucket full once again. He noted that Emma's hands were clasped behind her back, the look on her face possessing the placidity and the plasticity of a flight attendant going through a preflight safety presentation.

"_My name goes 'E-M'…and then another 'M'…and then an 'A' comes after__**WERRRDZZZZZ…**_

"_I DON'T WANT MY FLOATING-TIMELINED-EXISTENCE TO EHHHHHENNNNN…"_

(SPLOOOOOOSSSHHH)

What resulted was one White Witch sopping with water from head to toe, her hair back to blonde, her ivory effects soaked through, every inch from breast to backside. Christian looked upon her a second and then looked away abruptly, telling himself that if he weren't Emma's flesh and blood, he would have been stimulated to become straighter than an adamantium arrow just now.

"_CHRISTIAAANNN!_

"All this WATERRRRR…!"

Then he was awakened from any kind of hetero reverie as Emma's scream chastened him. He stood his ground, though, as much as he loved her.

"What?! I'm sorry, Em, but try as I might to find it, they just didn't have any hydrochloric acid to use on you, okay?! I'm sorry to disappoint!"

In truth, there was nothing which could have been more effective in bringing Sister Frost back from the brink of bawwfulness which she occupied only seconds ago. As the droves of droplets washed over the woman's face, it brought her back once again to the boarding incident brought on by Jason Wyngotye—and as such the shock of it all made her as right as the rain that fell down upon her.

"I must say, though, Em," Christian went on, as they stood in a puddle of diluted shoe polish, "_I_ am somewhat disappointed in _you._"

Sister just looked over at Brother curiously, she holding her arms tight against her saturated chest.

"Can't help but notice…your magnificent mane of hair has defaulted, seemingly, back to blonde. You really like me that much you're trying to copycat, or are you just not satisfied being in your own, true skin…?"

Emma shot Chris a gaze worthy of their surname. "It's just a defensive thing, Chrissy, alright?! To be honest, I've never really known life-or-death adversity too much as a brunette. Really from the difficulties I experienced at university, to Hellfire and then to the Academy, I've always adventured as nothing less than the bombastic, blonde…"

(WHIRRRRRRRRRR)

Both siblings spun around at the sound…

"_EEEEE-EFFFFF, MISS EMMA FROST…WHAT A WAY TO COME ACROSS!_

"_SHE'LL CHILL YOU WITH HER ICE EYES (ICE EYES), AND HER FLAX HAIR (FLAX HAIR)…" _

…of what was without a shadow the crappiest rapping ever. With intense incredulity the Frosts beheld a most mulleted, chess-pieced-codenamed time traveler, whom perhaps only his sister Shard had called Lucas, and whom everyone else had called "Future Usher" on occasion, this man now huddled into a Power Wheels rendition of a black sports car rumbling along the far end of the Gallows…

"_I'M FLUX, AND CRUISIN' (YEAH, YEAH)…_

"_TIME LINES, SWITCHIN' LINES…_

"'_POCALYPSE UP MY ASS, WOO!"_

…noting Emma and Christian only with the most smacked-ass of artificial elation etched upon his face as he proceeded to steer said Wheels straight along…

…straight into the gas chamber adjacent to the Gallows.

Thus again proving the point that something so racially insensitive, if not racially atrocious, can fly only in a Rebecca-Blackesque production, parody, or other such presentation.

(Social Justice Warriors, relax…he comes back to save the day in the next chapter. This was just to provide a satirical companion piece to the racially insensitive depiction of a black individual rapping while being led away in handcuffs at the end of Rebecca's "Saturday" video. Sorry to explain the joke, but everything is so insanely politically correct anymore).

At any rate, as Future Usher drove off to what looked as if to be his apparent, ecstatic execution, (but of course was not, per the above mandatory SJW-addressing disclaimer), another sound issued, as if obligatorily…

(BWWWAAAWWWAAAWWAAA)

…as the requisite Animated Series harmonica that always heralded his entry and exit reported once again.

Emma just crinkled his brow at this as she looked over at her brother. It was definitely time to get out of the Gallows.

And it was then, as the two sibs were leaving for the next segment of the penitentiary, that the traces of yet another melody began to assail her delicate ears…reminding her that yes, she had never really known life-or-death adversity as a brunette…

…except for perhaps that one time…

TO BE CONCLUDED


	3. Chapter 3

EMMAPAUSE TO EXTIRPATION

By Quillon42

CHAPTER THREE

Though the worst of the joint was behind the fright-fraught Frosts, insofar as they were through the most horrible areas of execution and confinement, the greatest of challenges yet lay ahead for Emma for certain.

As she walked now, she heard it, heard that baneful intonation that played in her mind during so many descents into dreamland, so many endeavors into unconsciousness, that theme heralded…

…by a Justin who was actually more menacing and miserable than the one who first assailed her in the sewers so long ago.

_You put the cuffs on my wrists,_

_And I let you,_

_You let the cops catch my ass,_

_And they caged me like I caged you then…_

_But I still don't know why_

_Why I lust for you so muhuhuhuchhhhh…_

It haunted Emma whenever she'd drift off, even just into a daydream—to say nothing about a fullblown overnight slumber.

As much as she wished to do so, the erstwhile White Queen could not put behind her the one whom she trapped the most treacherously.

And in turn, the traumatically trying Timberlyrics tripped along in the woman's cranium as she wended with brother in tow unknowingly toward a place where she could commune at least with the source of the sound that scared and scarred her all of these years.

_You aped me with your caper of captivity,_

_Made me do this stretch in the Codfish State can,_

_ …and I still don't know why_

_ Why I lust for you so muhuhuhchhhhh…_

Emma could emit nothing from her Friday-frazzled maw as she marched on, she now in a trance from which not even the treasure of her brother could break her.

This was not for lack of trying on Christian's part; despite his built frame with massive muscles, he could not tug or drag his svelte sibling away from the post of her destiny…

A place which was certainly less threatening than any solitary stockade or venue of execution which the Frosts had flung themselves through:

Simply enough, the visitation carrels at the front of the penitentiary.

In this place, the voices of past visitants echoed through the receivers, overcoming Emma as she struggled to take another step in the vicinity. And through all of the din, one sound stood prominent.

The most horrific of hooks which hung upon Emma's mind these past several months.

Again it sounded in her mind as she started to near the phone carrels at the prison's front, again a just-insidious Justin baying "Baby"—but this one so much more odious and obnoxious, so much more abominable and anathematic:

_ BABE-y!_

_ It's avail-ing I'm in this jail…with you,_

_ But I just-can't-make-your-bail,_

_ Memories of you 're like mor-ning dew,_

_ But to-day you're all hail,_

_ No days you're here, no days you're there,_

_ No days you care,_

_ You're so unfairairuhrrr…_

It assailed Miss Frost the way it did when she attempted to cop cuddles with one Sebastian Shaw, in the deeps of the decade of disco.

_ You're so unfairairuhrrr…_

It onrushed Emma in the midst of every fantasy she ever attempted to enjoy, every thought-up tryst she invented with one Scott Summers.

_You're so unfairairuhrrr…_

Even in the most distant, desolate, dreamless dark, in the most solitary stretches of sleep in shades, and starkers otherwise…

_So unfairairuhrrr…_

The incarnation of this intonation now was enough to make the Queen beg for the wayward, wanton, unwanted thoughts of every man who ever leveled an amorous inkling her way—have it all wall up in the forefront of her mind just so she could drown out the dreadful drawling of that most eternally, inexplicably enterprising of ex-Mouskefuckingteers.

Because these days, in this sophistication-saturated year of 2014 (and also before), even the most "badass" (God, this author hates that term) of hardcore hiphoppers have to hang their success on the hook of someone whose street cred originated with N Fucking Sync.

When she and Chris reached the carrels, Emma expected to commune with a constituent from the most needling, the most nettling of her nightmares…

…and the blister of a bleached blonde received it, sure as shuddering Shadowcats.

A trippy trice later, though, and Emma and Christian most _un_expectedly found themselves "on hold" in the phone carrels—more specifically their bodies enveloped in the spindly telephone cords, with the receivers in key positions near to their posteriors, should either or both try anything plucky.

_Well,_ hissed a vituperative voice from within the noggins of both siblings. _It looks as if, in the last leg of your torture of today, at least one Frost was fraught by the coaxing of a Cord—that of the vengeful little Goth girl that's the youngest sister, that is._

_And now we have both Emmy and Chrissy beset by another kind of "cord" altogether this time. How uncannily consistent._

Emma could tell that it was the whiny inflection of one Wyngarde again…

…but mixed with the sound of the speaker whose sirenic song slithered into her head all these past several years. Who could it have possibly been…

As with her sib, Em did all she could to stress and strain against the bonds holding fast…but she, for one, could not get her caped, corseted self free from them, her telepathic talents useless against the telephonic fetters and she otherwise unable to access her diamond or even her brunette iteration.

Before her, the vicious voice resumed its haughty harangue.

_Of course, my psychoccupant here, who is sharing my brainspace as of right now…he would have preferred cages to cords…seeing as that was his particular sadomasochistic modus operandi…_

The face fronting the voice(s) then made itself known. It commenced again as the brutishly-handsome boxy-ass mutton-chopped countenance of Jason Wyngarde…

…but then said looks seemed to liquefy before the pair, the cheekbones caving, giving way to a slacker, sallower kind of face. The mangy muttons melted into a goofy goatee, and the image otherwise became beset with slick sunglasses.

And then Emma knew exactly who the other tenant was in the Medulla-duplex of douche that hovered before her and her brother.

"_BAZZ?!"_

Yes; finally, she figured it out. That fetishist fool whose stock in trade seemed to consist of celluloid involving young women's captivity within small boxes lined by bars.

He was caught up in the capers of the Lucien-led loan sharks, his talents tapped to tape Emma encased in one such cage, as a ransom for Winston to pay—which Win-Win did in the end, if only to rescue his reputation after Adrienne broke the story of Emma's kidnapping to the media.

But yes, while not behind the immediate dangers to Emma per se, Bazz was still behind the binding of the bleached bitch (back then still a brunette, technically)…

…and apparently with the assistance of that most masturbatory of minds, he had two tow-haired Frosts in the box now.

Before Emma could say anything, the collective Bazz/Bastardmind voice, anew: _I uncuffed you, Emma, when Lucien's gang was licked…and what did you do? You clicked those handcuffs right back onto my own wrists. It wasn't right, when I was the one who set you free._

_Now, just as Lucien demanded his interest from Troy…both you and Christian are going to pay me back, with interest, with each of you doing the time I hashed out in the hoosegow…in spades._

Em struggled all she could, but the cords only drew tighter against her enhanced haunches, as well as both her E-sized mounds of merrymaking in front. "Bazz," she managed, before the cords could cover her mouth in addition, "I was all alone back there. You came off as a threat, and I felt I did what had to be done, darl…"

_DON'T YOU 'DARLING' ME!_ screamed the voice shrilly, as the aforesaid shallow cheeks scrunched into a flustered rage. Out of the wall nearby, the phone cord came and came and came out the jack, extending indefinitely and looking ultimately to encircle the two Frosts anacondically till the breath fled from both of them.

_Your…containment of my person resulted in the ruination of my career—as well as the near-violation of my own person,_ the inflection went on. _I was the one who, as you emitted most mewlingly in your 'Emm-Day' rendition an hour past or so, almost had to choose between dropped soaps amongst cons. Fortunately, despite this pen's stance on the death penalty…it's liberal enough to allow for the seemingly insane to have their own spaces…so I went into a convincing-enough act of the crazies to allow an escape into solitary—just as you started out, here._

_And now you're all tied up at the phone—just as I always was, with my mother, as my only friend in the whole world to scold me and hold my hand through my stint in the joint, as the only one to visit me. _

Em didn't know what would kill her first: asphyxiation by phone line, or stroke from saccharine sob-story. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to block out the sound of the alleged "man"'s prattling, but to no avail.

"So you've experienced the gamut of the gauntlet I had to undergo while here, Emma…" cried the voice, as the image solidified before the Frosts to reveal Bazz standing there now, with Jason's visage somewhat superimposed…as the phone lines cut ever more cruelly into the flesh of Emma and Christian alike…

"…but unlike myself, you're not going to outlive the ordeal…"

And for several excruciating instants, Emma accepted her enemy's taunts as true, she experiencing the embrace of the crushing cords ever tighter…tighter…

…until…(WHIRRRRRRRRRR)

…the most hackneyed of heroes, the smarmiest of saviors, the proud Power-Wheeled liberator lumbered in once again…

…again with a rap to rival even that of the Holy-Grail-hollering, Mickey-Mouse-pal-patronized rapper, a variation of whose hook had haunted Emma Frost all this time.

"_PASSIN' BY IS THE XSE IN FRONT OF ME_

"_WANNA FLIP THE LETTERS, ANAGRAM OF ACRONYM, SCREAM_

"_SEX-Y ME, IT'S EMM-DAY (EMM-DAY),_

"_IT'S A WEAK HOOK (WEAK HOOK),_

"_BUT BABE-Y PUTS OUT, SO COME ON, COME ON, Y'ALL…"_

_(HSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS)_

As the awful drawl of this diabolical aural drivel ensued, as recited by the rebellious Future Usher with face full of churlish corniness, the haunting aura of Bazzturdmind gave way to gas and electricity emitting—from the very caroming child's vehicle commandeered by the raucous rescuer. Apparently Lucas was using his powers to let off emissions from the execution chambers he had occupied moments ago, energies which were now working their way into the constricting phone cords pressing against Emma and Christian…

…and most mercifully making said bonds to buckle, allowing the Frosts a free second to shed the slippery shackles against their skin. Before he knew it, then, the Bazz being was in fact beset by a Frost flanking the entity on either side. And just before either of them could exact any kind of vengeance, once again, just as Lucas took his leave once more…

(BWWWAAAWWWAAAWWAAA)

Christian shook his head, dropping his guard a critical second.

"What the fuck with that harmonica."

A beat later: "…Chrissy…!"

This just as the Bazz-blight attempted one last thrust, straight at Christian—a hidden lethally-injective syringe aimed straight at the man's throat…

…which Emma caught readily in the cupping of a diamond-hard hand, said pummely palm crushing the sticker an instant later.

As the needle's splintery fragments shivered to the floor, a horrid, hollow spirit spurted out of the figure that was predominantly Bazz…leaving him nothing but Bazz, once again.

And now said man crumpled up at the feet of the Frosts, cowered before them.

"Please," he began, blubbering past the junction of pathetic and pitiful, "I don't deserve to live for what I put the pair of you through. Just…mind-control me out of my misery, already…"

One sibling looked to the other, then down again to the supplicating spectacle of a person before them. At this point, Bazz was too wretched to rend the life from.

He went on, in his wheedling way. "I've…I've just been…so alone, all my life…and for what it's worth, Miss Frost, I've never beheld a beauty such as yours—not in any of my filmwork, nor in anything beyond. As my voice, enhanced by Mastermind, might have haunted your head all these years…

"Believe me, your face tormented mine all the more."

The ordinarily-unyielding frau stood flattered, even floored by all of this. As shrewdly standoffish as she always was, and as intimidating as her abilities were, there were not too many men who had the courage and the couth to compliment her so.

She looked down at him sadly.

And then she hooked a thumb into each side of her slight, white bikini panties.

Christian, as he noted his sister hitching down: "Emma…what the _fuck?!_"

"What…it's been a while for me, Christian." She started undoing the ties on her corset in turn.

"I've been playing the stodgy schoolmarm for far too long; I've missed the hedonism of Hellfire,

all those fiends with benefits I once knew."

As she stood utterly starkers before the two men: "Really I was hoping to have a moment like this with Troy; the climax here, so to speak, is a bit of a screwball, curveball of a letdown. But fuck it—literally.

"I've been known to do just as Future Usher said, in his 'song' just moments ago…"

She jumped her in-the-altogether ass right into Bazz's spindly arms. "So come on, come on, y'all. Hopefully this will exorcise any potential future…jaunty Justins from my head, anyway."

Christian shook his head again, this time in abject disgust as he watched his sister (just for a second, before looking away aghast) begin to connect with her former captor on a most intimate level.

As he started to walk away…

"Would you care to join us?"

Unbelievably, a double-or-nothing plea from the pathetic piss-stain of a person who begged for his life to end ten minutes ago. And before Christian could say anything:

"You ever see any Kevin Smith films? It might…solve any problems…resolve any tension between us all. Might pay for you and I, Chris, to be 'Chasing Emma'…"

"Dude, I'm like, all down with the deviant stuff…but you know she's like my friggin' sister. Even I wouldn't go that far…"

"Hmmph, really darling, I agree with Chrissy." Emma emm-braced Bazz ever tighter, allowed her chest to crush against the features of her unworthy antagonist all the more. (Making anyone reading this, including this author upon revision, wish to have antagonized Emma in another life—if it ended up with _this_ sort of response). "We Frosts may fly out past the fences enclosing goodness, and even past good taste sometimes…but an orgy involving incest is somewhat beyond even us."

Bazz nodded slowly from his unbelievably enviable place between the Queen's E's. "Well," he sighed, "I have had a reputation as 'Bazz, the Bi of Boston'…but I suppose if I serve consecutive sentences between you two, instead of concurrent ones, that'll be acceptable as well…"

"Don't push your luck, darling," said Em as she set down the abovementioned E's to a labor most libertine.

Then minutes later, as Emma dressed again in the most insubstantial of evocative effects, and at the pen's entrance watched Bazz run from said prison with the most cowplop-consuming of smiles on his face…

[WHHHSSSSSSHHH]

…in a flourish Emma's own personal golden good-witch appeared once again, she standing before both Frosts in a glimmering goose-hued gown.

"Ahh, Miss LaPorte," Emma addressed her same-named benefactress as the latter looked almost lovingly upon the two Frosts, "I had an inkling that you would alight right about this very moment—just as you did after the…learning experience I endured in the sewer a year past."

"Yes, my dear Emma," said this other Emma, Miss LaPorte to be exact—the elderly ex-prostitute who suffered an incendiary, altering ordeal which changed her life spiritually and otherwise superhumanly for the better. "And just as I was there for you, in the end, to reward you for making it through your difficult tribulation there…here I am anew, to bestow upon you more abilities, to enhance your talents all the more."

Grinning gleefully, Emma was as gracious…as Christian was incredulous. Chris: "What're you, like, the police who show up at the end of the horror film? Where were you hours ago, when we were undergoing Gotye to the point of gagging, and having our asses waterboarded into oblivion?!"

Miss LaPorte continued to stand, unabashed and proud, before the two. "My abilities, while extensive, can only go so far. They are curative, but not preventative of horrors such as Masque or Mastermind who accost those such as Emma and yourself."

Emma kept standing there in awe of her Emmamate…but thought within:

_Christian has a point, sort of. And this lady's codename, as she told me last time, is Penitence…is that just a coincidence, considering that we just sprung ourselves from a penitentiary?!_

She dismissed it fleetingly from her mind as the other Emma spoke once again. "At any rate, I am here to imbue you with new ability, Emma." Again, as she did in the subterranean trial of yesteryear, LaPorte approached Miss Frost and breathed upon her. Christian watched, amazed, as Emma's entire body shifted from flesh to a sort of viscous resin—but still retaining a humanoid form, as Em did while diamond as well.

"As you have dared to delve as personally as possible into the past, liasing in a most intimate way with one whom you could have crushed underfoot…you demonstrated an unparalleled level of compassion. For this, I now give you the ability to change your body to amber—and thus grant you an overly flexible, yet sturdy substance to complement the steadiness of your diamond ability—to commemorate the extirpating and embracing of the past…as well as those spirits encased in it.

LaPorte paused a second. Then: "In addition…"

The older Emma breathed once more upon the younger, and Christian next watched, this time appalled, as his sis's shocks of hair went from blonde to black—just as they did in the Gallows. But this time, it looked utterly more natural than the shoe-polish job in the pen.

"To celebrate your journey and return once again regarding voids from the past…I am allowing you now to shift from natural brunette, to natural blonde, and also to this now natural black-haired form. Yours is now a beauty which is all the more versatile, and as vibrant as it has always been."

Emma smiled wide at this other transformation. "Black, brown, blonde…just as long as you don't make my locks red, like a certain philthy phoenix I once knew…we're all good."

_And just as long as she doesn't revert to singing any more terrible teen themes to go along with the raven mane, I guess I'm good, thought Chrissy. Still like her best as the brunette I've always remembered her as._

After another few instants of pleasantries and precious hugs, as well as a promised appointment for team and crumpets between the two Emmas at a future date, Miss LaPorte took her leave at last. And this without the granting of any abilities unto Christian, despite all he endured alongside his sister—which he was actually perfectly fine with, given that he was glad with the differences and deviations he already enjoyed, and felt that he didn't require any more.

The last embrace Emma extended this day occurred not with the bawdy Bazz or the sentimental LaPorte, but rather between Sister and Brother as Emma and Christian held each other closely, caringly, each glad that the other was alright.

Emma rested in the arms of her Chrissy, but then a few seconds later with some fatigue:

"Okay, brother; let's head home. We hold each other any longer, and Bazz's 'Chasing Emma' idea might start sounding good to me."

Christian blanched a second, then relented, gently unhanding his sibling. "…Um, yes, of course."

And as the two began to walk away from the old, abandoned prison, Emma reflected within that she actually shared some of the icky, intimate emotions she was collecting empathically from her brother…

…and decided to cut down just a trifle on her interactions with him…lest the two of them start to become the stateside Von Struckers before either of them knew it.


End file.
